Privacy Policy

College Parents of America, is a Virginia Non-Stock Corporation that operates for the benefit of its members. The organization operates as a tax-paying non-profit organization and does not seek a tax-exempt status.   College Parents of America may be referred to as “CPA” or “we”, “us”, or “our” are strongly committed to our members privacy.  This privacy policy seesk to convey how we may collect information and data from you or that you may provide when you visit the websites https://www.collegeparents.org (our “Website”) and our practices for collecting, using, maintaining protecting, and disclosing that information. This policy is applicable to data and information we collect:

  • On this Website, including any other website operated by us and linked to this policy (including the versions optimized for viewing on wireless or tablet devices).

  • In email, texts, and other electronic messages between you and this Website.

  • Through all email newsletters published or distributed by us.

  • Offline when you interact or otherwise do business with us such as when you provide your information on applications or other forms provided by you or on your behalf.

It does not apply to information collected by:

  • Websites operated by any third party (including our affiliates and subsidiaries which have their own privacy policies); or

  • Any third party (including our customers, affiliates and subsidiaries including through any application or content (including advertising) that may link to or be accessible from the Website.

Please read this policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, your choice is not to use our Website. By accessing or using this Website, you agree to this privacy policy. This policy may change from time to time and we will updated this site periodically to conform to the best practices surrounding consumer privacy. Your continued use of this Website after we make changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so please check the policy periodically for updates.

What Information Does College Parents of America Collect and Store?

We collect two types of information – personal and non-personal – from you in conjunction with your use of the Website and our products and services. Personal information is any information that can individually identify you and can include, among other things, your name, e-mail address, telephone number, postal address, date of birth, billing, credit card, and contact information. In addition, we collect information about your transactions with us, or with our affiliates or others, including information such as your policy, coverage, premiums and payment history. Personal information is also information that you may supply to us such as when you write to us via the Website, complete a survey, or provide your e-mail address. Non-personal information includes information that does not personally identify you, but it may include tracking and usage information about your location, demographics, use of the Website and the Internet.

Personal Information – How It Is Collected

You do not need to register or set up an account to view the Website and you can browse the Website without submitting your personal information to us. However, there are a number of circumstances in which you may supply us or our agents with your personal information. The following lists the most common ways in which we may collect your personal information:

  • When you submit information to process your insurance or non-insurance application, quote or other transaction that you have requested.

  • When we receive information from a consumer-reporting agency including your credit history and creditworthiness.

  • Signing up to receive alerts or other information via email, text, instant message, phone, or chat from us.

  • Requesting customer service or other assistance for our insurance or non-insurance products that you are covered by (including as provided by affiliates and unaffiliated third parties such as underwriters, insurance carriers, benefit providers, and third party administrators).

  • Submission of content or other data and information on any part of the Website as may be permitted.

  • Any other place on the Website where you knowingly volunteer personal information.

Non-Personal Information

In addition, when you interact with the Website we may collect certain information that does not identify you individually and our servers may automatically keep an activity log of your use of our Website (“Non-Personal Information”). Generally, we may collect and store the following categories of Non-Personal Information:

  • Non-identifiable demographic data such as age, gender, school name, and five-digit zip code as part of collecting personal information.

  • Information about your computer, browser, mobile device, or other device that you use to access the Website. This information may include IP address, geolocation information, unique device identifiers, browser type, browser language, and other transactional information.

  • Analytics and usage information about your use of the Website.

  • Additional “traffic data” and log files such as time of access, date of access, software crash reports, session identification number, access times, and referring website addresses.

  • Other information regarding your use of the Website.

Collection of Your Source IP Address/Location Information

We will collect and store location information about you on the Website and associated with your account, if any, that you volunteer on the Website or enable through the Website. We will not collect any location information that you do not volunteer or enable. We will delete any location information that you request is deleted. We do collect and store your device’s source IP address which may disclose the location of your device at the time you access the Website.

Collection of Personal Information From or Through Social Media Sites or Using Your Social Media Logon

When you interact with any College Parents  page or account on a social media platform, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, LinkedIn, YouTube, or Pinterest, we may collect the personal information that you make available to us on that page or account including your account ID or “handle”. However, we will comply with the privacy policies of the corresponding social media platform and we will only collect and store such personal information that we are permitted to collect by these social media platforms.

Collection of Personal and Non-Personal Information From Other Sources

We also may collect and store information about you that we receive from other sources (including by us from our offline interactions with you) to, among other things, enable us to update and correct the information contained in our database and to better customize your experience on the Website. Additionally, we may also obtain information such as credit reports, claims history, and investigative reports from other sources. The information we obtain about you may come from other insurance companies, insurance support organizations, credit bureaus, property data collection services, or other providers of information.

Collection of Personal and Non-Personal Information Through Surveys and Promotions

From time to time we may provide you with the opportunity to participate in promotions through our Website that might be sponsored or conducted by a third party. If you participate, we will request certain personal information from you. Participation in these promotions is completely voluntary and you therefore have a choice whether or not to disclose this personal information. The requested personal information typically includes contact information. If there is a third party sponsor involved, please make sure to review that party’s privacy policy.

Collection of Third Party Personal Information Through Tell-A-Friend Feature

We may from time to time conduct a referral service to introduce people you know to us. If you choose to use our referral service to tell someone about our Website we will ask you for your contact’s name and email address. We will automatically send your contact a one-time email inviting him or her to visit our Website. College Parents of America stores this information for the purpose of sending this one-time email and tracking the success of our referral program. Your contact may contact us at admin@collegeparents.org to request that we remove this information from our database.

Use of Cookies, Flash Cookies, Web Storage, and Web Beacons

Like many websites, we use “cookies”, which are small text files that are stored on your computer or equipment when you visit certain online pages that record your preferences and actions. We may also use cookies to monitor traffic, improve the Website and make it easier and/or relevant for your use. We use both “session” cookies and “persistent” cookies. We use cookies for the other purposes set out below:

  • When you create an account, we use cookies to remind us who you are and to find your account information in our database when you access the Website so you do not need to log in at every visit. This helps us to provide you with service tailored to your specific needs and interests. A cookie is created when you register.

  • We use cookies to help remember and process items in your shopping cart and to understand and save preferences for future visits.

  • We use cookies to determine the browser the visitor uses so the Website can be designed to work properly with the most common versions of different browsers.

  • If we offer ads, advertisers that place ads on the Website may use cookies.

  • We use cookies to estimate our audience size. Your browser is given a unique cookie that helps us determine whether your cookie is a repeat visit or a first visit.

  • You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but, if you prefer, you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies. If you delete your cookies or if you set your web browser to decline cookies, some features of the Website may not work or may not work as designed. For more information on cookies and how to disable them, you can consult the information provided by the Interactive Advertising Bureau at www.allaboutcookies.org.

We may use flash cookies, web storage, web beacons or other technology that tracks your browsing history across multiple websites.

College Parents of America works with a variety of advertisers, advertising networks, advertising servers and analytics companies. These parties use various technologies, and technologies from third-party companies, to collect data in order to send and serve relevant advertising to users. These technologies may include the placement of cookies or web beacons, the use of HTML5 LocalStorage, the use of unique or non-unique non-personal identifiers and other technologies. These technologies may be used to track user behavior and serve you more relevant advertising. This relevant advertising may appear on our Website or other websites that you visit. This privacy policy does not cover the use of various technologies by advertisers, advertising networks, advertising servers, and analytics companies. These companies may also obtain information from websites you use from other companies, including without limitation, other websites, mobile websites, mobile downloadable applications, and downloadable applications, and combine that information with information they obtain through these third party technologies on our Website. You should be aware that College Parents of America does not have control over these third party technologies or the information contained in them. You should be aware that if you choose to opt out through other websites, this does not opt you out of being served advertising. The ads will just not be targeted to you by any party from which you have opted out. You can also opt out of future information collection from our Website by ceasing use of the Website.

Is Personal Information Collected From Children?

College Parents of America does not knowingly collect personal identifiable information from children under 13 years of age. If you are under 13 years of age you should not provide personally identifiable information to CPA without providing us with consent from your parents or legal guardians. If CPA discovers that a child under the age of 13 has provided us with personally identifiable information and we do not have parental consent, College Parents of America will immediately delete that child’s information from the Website. If you believe we might have information from or about a child under 13, please contact us at support@CollegeParents.org.

How Do We Use Your Information?

We use the information we learn from you to help us personalize and continually improve your experience on the Website. We may, as permitted by law, use your Personal and Non-Personal Information in the following ways:

General Uses

  • Process your insurance or non-insurance application, quote or other transaction that you have requested.

  • Process your Personal Information for the purpose of rating policies with comparative underwriters or raters.

  • Provide support, service and assistance for our products that you are covered by (including as provided by affiliates and unaffiliated third parties such as underwriters, carriers, benefit providers and third party administrators).

  • Communicate with you about your transactions with us (including product related announcements), your policy, claims and send you information about features and enhancements on our Website.

  • Communicate with you about changes to our policies.

  • Personalize content and experiences on our Website including providing you reports, recommendations and feedback based on your preferences.

  • Disclose anonymized Personal Information to disclose statistics and other details regarding the use of our Website.

  • Optimize or improve our products, services, Website and operations.

  • Detect, investigate, and prevent activities that may violate our policies or be illegal.

  • Perform statistical, demographic, and marketing analyses of users of our products, services, and Website.

Use of Your Location Information

Specifically, we use your location information to:

  • Personalize content on our Website including providing you with access to information about other reports, recommendations and feedback based on your feedback, if any.

  • Optimize or improve our products, services, Website and operations.

  • Detect, investigate, and prevent activities that may violate our policies or be illegal.

  • Perform statistical, demographic, and marketing analyses of users of our products, services, and Website and their patterns.

Combination of Your Personal Information

We use the information from one portion of the Website on other portions of Website in reports and analysis, all of which are owned and operated by College Parents of America, and we may combine information gathered from multiple portions of the Website into a single customer record or analysis or report. We also use and/or combine information that we collect off-line or we collect or receive from third party sources to enhance, expand, and check the accuracy of your customer records.

Who Do We Provide Your Information To?

Except as disclosed in this Privacy Policy, we do not disclose information about your Personal Information collected online to any companies not part of College Parents of America or our parent, subsidiaries or related entities. In no event will we sell or rent your Personal Information as part of a customer list or similar transaction.

Federal law also gives you the right to limit some but not all marketing from College Parents of America affiliated companies. You may limit our affiliated companies, such as any financial services affiliates operating under the brand names listed at this webpage from marketing their products or services to you based on certain of your Personal Information that we share with them.  Your choice to limit marketing offers from an affiliated company will apply for at least five (5) years from when you tell us your choice. Before your choice to limit marketing expires, you will receive a renewal notice that will allow you to continue to limit marketing offers from any CPA affiliated company for at least another five (5) years. If you have already made a choice to limit marketing offers from our affiliated companies, you do not need to act again until you receive the renewal notice. If you prefer to limit the marketing from an affiliated company, please contact us at admin@collegeparents.org. Please note that your choice to limit marketing offers will not apply in certain circumstances as provided under applicable law, such as when you have an account or policy with the affiliated company that is marketing to you. An opt-out request from one joint customer will apply to all joint customers on the policy or account.

Business Partners and Third Parties

We may share your Personal Information with our business partners, including channel partners and service providers or co-marketers from time to time. We may also share your Personal Information with third parties that provide products that we think you may be interested in. Although our treatment of your Personal Information is governed by this Privacy Policy, the business partner or third party’s treatment of your Personal Information will be governed by the business partner or third party’s privacy policy. You may withdraw your consent to our sharing of your Personal Information with business partners and third parties at any time by following the opt-out process described below.

Third-Party Agents

We have third party agents, subsidiaries, affiliates and partners that perform functions on our behalf, such as hosting, billing, push notifications, storage, bandwidth, content management tools, analytics, customer service, fraud protection, etc. These entities have access to the Personal Information needed to perform their functions and are contractually obligated to maintain the confidentiality and security of that Personal Information. They are restricted from using, selling, distributing or altering this data in any way other than to provide the requested services to us.

Emergency Situations

We may also use or disclose Personal Information if permitted or required to do so by law or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to applicable law or comply with legal process served on us or the Website, (b) protect and defend our rights or property, the Website, or our other users, and (c) act under emergency circumstances to protect the personal safety of us, our affiliates, agents, or the users of the Website or the public. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for fraud protection or any criminal activity including material misrepresentation or non-disclosure in connection with an insurance transaction.

College Parents of America E-mail Communications

E-mail communications sent from us are designed to make your Website experience more efficient. By participating in the Website you specifically agree to accept and consent to receiving e-mail communications initiated from us, which include, without limitation: message notification e-mails, emails about your insurance policy, claims, products, customer service, and e-mails informing you about new and existing products we provide.

What Steps Are Taken To Keep Personal Information Secure?

We are concerned about ensuring the security of your Personal Information. We exercise great care in providing secure transmission of your information from your computer or tablet to our servers. Personal Information collected by our products, services, or Website is stored in secure operating environments that are not available to the public. Our security procedures mean that we may occasionally request proof of identity before we disclose your Personal Information to you. Please understand, however, that while we try our best to safeguard your Personal Information once we receive it, no transmission of data over the Internet or any other public network can be guaranteed to be 100% secure.

How Can We Transfer Your Personal Information?Your information collected through the Website may be stored and processed in the United States or any other country in which College Parents of America, its affiliates or service providers maintain facilities. CPA, our affiliates, or service providers may transfer information that we collect about you, including personal information across borders and from your country or jurisdiction to other countries or jurisdictions around the world. If you are located in the United States or other regions with laws governing data collection and use that may differ from US law, please note that we may transfer information, including personal information, to a country and jurisdiction that does not have the same data protection laws as your jurisdiction. By registering for and using our product, service or Website you consent to the transfer of information to the US and the use and disclosure of information about you as described in this Privacy Policy.

How Long Do We Keep Your Information?

Following termination or deactivation of your account, College Parents of America, our affiliates, or its service providers may retain information (including your profile information) for a commercially reasonable time for backup, archival, analysis, marketing, optimization, and/or audit purposes. If you have any questions about termination or deactivation of your account, please contact us directly at admin@collegeparents.org

What Happens When I Link To or From Another Website?

These Website may contain links to other websites operated by third parties. Please be advised that the practices described in this Privacy Policy for College Parents of America do not apply to information gathered through these other websites. We are not responsible for the actions and privacy policies of third parties and other websites.

Governing Law

This Website is published in the United States. We attempt to protect the Personal Information of all users of our Website and we attempt to comply with local data protection and consumer rights laws to the extent they may apply to this Website but our Website is located and targeted to persons in the United States and our policies are directed at compliance with those laws. If you are uncertain whether this privacy policy conflicts with the applicable local privacy laws where you are located, you should not submit your personal information to College Parents of America.

Changes to This Policy

As our Website develops, we may add new services and features to our Website. In the event that these additions affect our Privacy Policy, this policy will be updated and we will post those changes prominently so that you will always know what information we gather, how we might use that information and whether we will disclose it to anyone. We do recommend that you read this Privacy Policy frequently when you use our Website in case you missed our notice of changes to the Privacy Policy. Be advised, however, that we will not materially change our policies and practices to make them less protective of Personal Information we have previously collected from you without your consent.

How Do I Opt-Out of Communications or Correct Information About Me?

You may always opt-out of receiving future e-mail messages and communications from College Parents of America by following the unsubscribe instructions included on a particular communication or by sending us a message at admin@collegeparents.org or the mailing address included on the communication. Please note that you may not elect to stop receipt of communications pertaining to the processing or servicing of your application, product, or account and you may receive communications on the same unless you cancel that product in accordance with that particular product’s terms and conditions and you will have no further transactions with us. If you request that we correct information about you, we will notify you within thirty (30) business days of receiving your written request. We will then provide the amended information to any person you designate, who may have received the information within the past two years as well as any entity that supplied us with the information or to whom we disclosed it.

Your California Privacy Rights

California Civil Code Section 1798.83 provides that users of College Parents of America Website who are California residents to request certain information regarding its disclosure of their personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please send an e-mail to admin@collegeparents.org.   This Website will respect your browser’s Do Not Track signals (or other well-established, commercially available mechanisms that provide you with the ability to exercise choice regarding the collection of personal information). If we receive a Do Not Track notice, we will stop using any personal information for online behavioral advertising purposes if we are conducting such activity.

Assignment

In the event we change our ownership or corporate organization while providing the Website or sell certain assets associated with the Website please be aware that in such event we may transfer some or all of your information to that company acquiring all or part of our assets or to another company with which we have merged. Under such circumstances we would, to the extent possible, require the acquiring party to follow the practices described in this Privacy Policy, as it may be amended from time to time. Nevertheless, we cannot promise that an acquiring company or the merged company will have the same privacy practices or treat your information the same as described in this Privacy Policy.